And both perhaps should be reflected in the GCC upgrade guide, which may be what brought
many of us here? I am currently working on my first full system upgrade on my powerbook
because I finally had to upgrade to modular X, which I knew would break my system- and it did.
Now, preparing to emerging world to fix X, I am doing this upgrade, which I knew would break
my system--and it did. This is how it was long ago, and I have been reluctant to do full system
upgrades since. But now the answers are all pretty neat and easy, and seem would not be bad
to add to the pitfalls sections of the upgrade guides.

If the python interpreter is actually nonfunctional, as opposed to some mishap with configuration or selection, try the following.

Download the package from the tinderbox repository which matches the architecture of the system. Place that file in $PKGDIR on that system. Then unpack that package directly under /, tar xvjf $PKGDIR/python-2.4.4-r6.tbz2 should do it, though $PKGDIR will likely need to be manually expanded as it is not typically present in the environment. Next ln -s /usr/bin/python2.4 /usr/bin/python. Finally, emerge -K dev-lang/python.

So what would be the best idea in this case? The portage package from tinderbox and the latest snapshot? I'm trying to avoid breaking things any more than I already have, so I thought I'd ask for advice (please) before I do anything more.

There should be a "special" USE FLAG for Python to not let you unmerge it. I to, thought, oh, unmerge the blocking issue and remerge. Fortunately it only took about 2 hours to find the solution._________________A day without sunshine is like night...

It is safer to use -c (--clean) or -P (--prune) instead of -C (--unmerge), as unlike -C they would not remove all versions. In addition -C does not take dependencies into account, while -P and --depclean do, though --depclean should also be used with -p (--pretend) or -a (--ask).

If the python interpreter is actually nonfunctional, as opposed to some mishap with configuration or selection, try the following.

Download the package from the tinderbox repository which matches the architecture of the system. Place that file in $PKGDIR on that system. Then unpack that package directly under /, tar xvjf $PKGDIR/python-2.4.4-r6.tbz2 should do it, though $PKGDIR will likely need to be manually expanded as it is not typically present in the environment. Next ln -s /usr/bin/python2.4 /usr/bin/python. Finally, emerge -K dev-lang/python.

Ahhh...this one saved the day...the manual compiles reminded me of the good ol Slackware days....and the errors/dependancies that ensued.

If the python interpreter is actually nonfunctional, as opposed to some mishap with configuration or selection, try the following.

Download the package from the tinderbox repository which matches the architecture of the system. Place that file in $PKGDIR on that system. Then unpack that package directly under /, tar xvjf $PKGDIR/python-2.4.4-r6.tbz2 should do it, though $PKGDIR will likely need to be manually expanded as it is not typically present in the environment. Next ln -s /usr/bin/python2.4 /usr/bin/python. Finally, emerge -K dev-lang/python.

Thanks.

This worked. Was quite sure I'd broken my server when I found this thread

If the python interpreter is actually nonfunctional, as opposed to some mishap with configuration or selection, try the following.

Download the package from the tinderbox repository which matches the architecture of the system. Place that file in $PKGDIR on that system. Then unpack that package directly under /, tar xvjf $PKGDIR/python-2.4.4-r6.tbz2 should do it, though $PKGDIR will likely need to be manually expanded as it is not typically present in the environment. Next ln -s /usr/bin/python2.4 /usr/bin/python. Finally, emerge -K dev-lang/python.

You, sir, are a lifesaver. I know better than to emerge -C python, something in me said "Don't do it. Search the forums on the blocker" but I did it anyway and thought I was dead where I stood after it completed. Thank you.

If the python interpreter is actually nonfunctional, as opposed to some mishap with configuration or selection, try the following.

Download the package from the tinderbox repository which matches the architecture of the system. Place that file in $PKGDIR on that system. Then unpack that package directly under /, tar xvjf $PKGDIR/python-2.4.4-r6.tbz2 should do it, though $PKGDIR will likely need to be manually expanded as it is not typically present in the environment. Next ln -s /usr/bin/python2.4 /usr/bin/python. Finally, emerge -K dev-lang/python.

You, sir, are a lifesaver. I know better than to emerge -C python, something in me said "Don't do it. Search the forums on the blocker" but I did it anyway and thought I was dead where I stood after it completed. Thank you.

Good its not just me doing these clever things...

This tinderbox version of recovering seem better than what I did. I found the old Python package in the distfiles directory and then unpacked and run .configure, make and make install myself. Then I run emerge python and got a second copy of the same version of Python 2.5 on my system. I couldn't get Compiz-Fusion to run again with fusion-icon. To recover from this new problem, I then emerged Python 2.4 (emerge python-2.4* or something like that). After having 2.4 I then unmerged 2.5 and deleted everything I could find from the other 2.5 version I had installed manually. After that it all worked again after re-emegring pygtk and fusion-icon. Puh! I am still too scared to emerge the new Python 2.5 (I have masked it in package.mask).

I wonder why portage just doesn't let you unmerge python and itself from the command line? That would sound like a fair plan in this case and help end-users. A program should not allow the users to shoot themselves in the foot. When we release products at our company, we tend to account for all users irrespective of their intelligence level and make sure that the end users don't shoot themselves in the foot in any way. In this case, its seems rather obvious. Is it really hard to just not allow unmerging of python and portage from command line? How about an extra warning with explicit text (different from "this is part of your system profile" crap) stating that this will be the end of your gentoo dreams and you won't be able to install anything, not even portage itself?